Fight Club: A Novel [Paperback]

Chuck Palahniuk (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 3, 2005

The first rule about fight club is you don't talk about fight club.

Chuck Palahniuk's outrageous and startling debut novel that exploded American literature and spawned a movement. Every weekend, in the basements and parking lots of bars across the country, young men with white-collar jobs and failed lives take off their shoes and shirts and fight each other barehanded just as long as they have to. Then they go back to those jobs with blackened eyes and loosened teeth and the sense that they can handle anything. Fight club is the invention of Tyler Durden, projectionist, waiter, and dark, anarchic genius, and it's only the beginning of his plans for violent revenge on an empty consumer-culture world.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The only person who gets called Ballardesque more often than Chuck Palahniuk is, well... J.G. Ballard. So, does Portland, Oregon's "torchbearer for the nihilistic generation" deserve that kind of treatment? Yes and no. There is a resemblance between Fight Club and works such as Crash and Cocaine Nights in that both see the innocuous mundanities of everyday life as nothing more than the severely loosened cap on a seething underworld cauldron of unchecked impulse and social atrocity. Welcome to the present-day U.S. of A. As Ballard's characters get their jollies from staging automobile accidents, Palahniuk's yuppies unwind from a day at the office by organizing bloodsport rings and selling soap to fund anarchist overthrows. Let's just say that neither of these guys are going to be called in to do a Full House script rewrite any time soon.

But while the ingredients are the same, Ballard and Palahniuk bake at completely different temperatures. Unlike his British counterpart, who tends to cast his American protagonists in a chilly light, holding them close enough to dissect but far enough away to eliminate any possibility of kinship, Palahniuk isn't happy unless he's first-person front and center, completely entangled in the whole sordid mess. An intensely psychological novel that never runs the risk of becoming clinical, Fight Club is about both the dangers of loyalty and the dreaded weight of leadership, the desire to band together and the compulsion to head for the hills. In short, it's about the pride and horror of being an American, rendered in lethally swift prose. Fight Club's protagonist might occasionally become foggy about who he truly is (you'll see what I mean), but one thing is for certain: you're not likely to forget the book's author. Never mind Ballardesque. Palahniukian here we come! --Bob Michaels --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

From Publishers Weekly

Featuring soap made from human fat, waiters at high-class restaurants who do unmentionable things to soup and an underground organization dedicated to inflicting a violent anarchy upon the land, Palahniuk's apocalyptic first novel is clearly not for the faint of heart. The unnamed (and extremely unreliable) narrator, who makes his living investigating accidents for a car company in order to assess their liability, is combating insomnia and a general sense of anomie by attending a steady series of support-group meetings for the grievously ill, at one of which (testicular cancer) he meets a young woman named Marla. She and the narrator get into a love triangle of sorts with Tyler Durden, a mysterious and gleefully destructive young man with whom the narrator starts a fight club, a secret society that offers young professionals the chance to beat one another to a bloody pulp. Mayhem ensues, beginning with the narrator's condo exploding and culminating with a terrorist attack on the world's tallest building. Writing in an ironic deadpan and including something to offend everyone, Palahniuk is a risky writer who takes chances galore, especially with a particularly bizarre plot twist he throws in late in the book. Caustic, outrageous, bleakly funny, violent and always unsettling, Palahniuk's utterly original creation will make even the most jaded reader sit up and take notice. Movie rights to Fox 2000.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton (October 3, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393327345
• ISBN-13: 978-0393327342
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (731 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #884 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #11 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Genre Fiction > Movie Tie-Ins
  • #12 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Genre Fiction > Men's Adventure

More About the Author

Chuck Palahniuk's novels are the bestselling Fight Club, which was made into a film by director David Fincher, Diary, Lullaby, Survivor, Haunted, and Invisible Monsters. Portions of Choke have appeared in Playboy, and Palahniuk's nonfiction work has been published by Gear, Black Book, The Stranger, and the Los Angeles Times. He lives in the Pacific Northwest.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

365 of 392 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "This is your life, and it's ending one minute at a time.", October 5, 2002

By 

Michael Crane (Orland Park, IL USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Fight Club: A Novel (Paperback)

Like many, I had heard of the book "Fight Club" after seeing the movie. As soon as I found out that it was based on a novel, I remember thinking to myself;

How could this be a book?

Is that even possible?

The movie alone was so unbelievable that if it were done wrong, it would've been a horrible mess. But it was done just right, and the results were amazing.

One of my friends had read the book and told me on many occasions, "You've got to read the book." I told him that I've already seen the movie, and again, he says to me, "You've got to read the book. It's great, and it's actually different than the movie in a lot of parts."

That worried me, because I absolutely LOVED the movie. It's one of my favorites. I remember trying to read a book that another one of my favorite movies, "The Fan," was based on, and it was not an enjoyable experience. The book was COMPLETELY different from the movie, and not in a good way. I ended up never finishing it.

So, I was hesitant at first, but about a year or two ago I decided to give it a shot. And am I ever glad that I did. "Fight Club" is an outstanding novel. The writing is so refreshing and shows us the mind of a promising new author, Chuck Palahniuk. This was his very first novel, and I found that so amazing. Because this was one incredible debut. I have read plenty of novels all from different kinds of authors, but I have NEVER read a debut as incredible or impressive as this.

To give you a brief idea of what the book is about without giving away too much is it revolves around the narrator, an insomniac who can't get a grip on his life. With insomnia everything is a distraction. He can't focus on his job, he can't focus on people, and most of all, he can't focus on his life. Soon enough, he meets a slippery soap salesman, Tyler Durden, who is about to show our narrator a new outlook on life. And this is where they invent "Fight Club." It doesn't take long before everything starts to get out of control....WAY out of control, to one shocking climax and finale. (Don't think you have the answers because you've seen the movie. TRUST me on this one.)

This is a humorous novel with some darkness to it. It is both funny and thrilling at the same time. The book is filled with some of the most memorable lines; some that were used in the movie, others that were not. This is dark satire at its finest.

Know this; reading the book and watching the movie are two different experiences. Yes there are similarities, and there are differences. The only thing is that unlike "The Fan," the differences in the novel "Fight Club" really work and doesn't take away anything from anyone who was a fan of the film. It still stays true to the idea and story. Chances are you will enjoy the differences. That alone gives you a reason for reading, since you know it's going to be a different ride.

After reading "Fight Club," I knew that Chuck Palahniuk had a unique voice and talent. And I have found myself to be right from reading some of his other novels. (So far I have read this, "Choke," and "Lullaby.") This is a very easy book to read. Not for people who get grossed out easily, though. If you have seen the movie, read the book. If not, still read the book. I can't really say which is better, the movie or the book. To me, they were both different experiences, and I found them both just as enjoyable. But one thing for sure, all the credit should be given to Palahniuk. After all, "Fight Club" came from his mind. A terrific read and one of my favorites.

93 of 99 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An exhilirating read, January 22, 2002

By 

Jeffrey Ellis "bored recluse" (Richardson, Texas United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Fight Club: A Novel (Paperback)

Usually great books are either turned into mediocre films or else great films are made from mediocre books (and we won't even get into the sordid details of the novelizations). Fight Club is one of the rare instances where a great film was made from a great book. It is perhaps unfair to mention the film version while discussing the book as they are actually two very different animals. (And animal is the right word -- perhaps uniquely amongst contemporary novelists, Chuck Palahniuk writes novels that seem to live in the reader's hands, often threatening at any minute to lunge for the throat.) While most of the film's incidents are in the book and much of the razor-sharp dialouge is reproduced directly from the page, the book actually has a far greater satiric edge than the film. Whereas the film used the story as a celebration of nihilism, the book is far too self-aware to allow itself to truly celebrate anything. As such, it becomes less a call to action and more a devastatingly real portrait of a society that has become so commercialized and codified that even the once primal act of revolution becomes just another submission to pop culture.

Fight Club is the story of an unnamed narrator, an insomniac yuppie who spends his days helping insurance companies get out of having to pay their claims. He wanders through a meaningless life until he discovers the emotional release of attending therapy groups for people suffering from various deadly (and rather embarressing) diseases -- all of which the narrator pretends to have. When the arrival of another "faker" (the wonderfully dark Marla Singer, whose role is far less central in the book than in the film), the narrator finds even the shallow comfort of testicular cancer self-help groups has been taken away from him. Luckily for him, he happens to meet Tyler Durden around this time. And it is Tyler who introduces him to the concept of fighting. What starts as a few rounds in a bar parking lot soon transforms into the nationwide movement known as Fight Club. Every night, yuppies gather together and proceed to beat each other up and get in touch with the pure destructive instinct that society has forced them to suppress. From this violent but relatively benign concept, Tyler sets out to build up an even more extreme movement and our narrator finds his own life suddenly spiraling out of control. To go into any greater details would be unfair to those who have seen neither the film nor the book. All that need be said is that the story never goes where you expect it too and the final twists -- while seeming a bit outlandish at first -- ultimately make a great deal of somewhat sickening sense. As complex as the plot eventually becomes, Palahnuik handles it all with a sparse, deceptively calm style that makes this book the literal epitome of a "page turner" -- once you start reading, you are hooked and it is truly impossible to exit the hauntingly and humorously dark world he's created until you reach the end. Palahnuik proves himself to be an admirably subtle humorist and perhaps the funniest parts of the book comes from the reader's sudden realization that Fight Club has eventually become not so much a group of guerilla freedom fighters in the culture wars but instead simply a twisted mirror image of the weepy self-help groups that it seems to stand against. While the film's final twist remains the same in the book, the end results are far more different. While I personally favor the film's ending, both book and film build up to a strong conclusion that will stick with the reader long after completion. Both the film and the book are truly original works of American Art and to see or read one without the other is to miss out on two exhilirating, similar but ultimately quite different experiences.

58 of 66 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars FIGHT CLUB ROCKS - 4 STAR SPECTACLE, May 4, 2000

By 

"amazonedude" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Fight Club: A Novel (Paperback)

Chuck Palahniuk's debut novel, "Fight Club," is one of the greatest, provocative, and enlightening books written for our generation. It's a must-read, with a brilliant story, a writing style wonderfully crafted to depict the real world for as disgusting as it is, and a mischievous character who goes by the name of Tyler Durden, who's out to change the grotesque problems of modern-day society, for good.

--And great brain food. There are some issues and statements given in this book that really make you think especially about how we're defining "progress" for humanity. How do we define success and progress, but by how big of a house we have, or how much we have in the bank, or how pretty our wives look? In this book, the anti-society society "Fight Club" determines success by how little you have.

"Only until we lose everything, are we free to do anything."

Tyler Durden, Fight Club--the movie

Modern-day consumer-driven cultures have begun to press down on people to the breaking point, and now Tyler Durden has started his own therapy group that is growing rapidly in number by each session. It's a therapy group, unlike most of the others, and instead of giving you guided spiritual meditation and opening your chakras, it promotes violence, pain, and self-destruction. It's a group where aggressive males are sporting organized fight sessions to empower themselves by hitting rock bottom. Its called "Fight Club," and it's rapidly spreading in bars all over the United States.

But I've probably said too much already. "First rule of fight club is you cannot talk about fight club, and the second rule of fight club is you cannot talk about fight club."

It's one of the fastest books I've ever read, and it left me completely hooked, all the way until the end. The only thing I didn't like was all the room for expansion. Palahniuk really could have exploded on some of his ideas and perspectives a whole lot more, but it was still a great book and very reader worthy.

Another dissapointment was the cost for this book. After 20th Century Fox made the snazzy cover art for the book, they also jacked up the price to 13 bucks a copy, which is very ironic, especially when Fight Club's motto was to screw perfection and neatness. But that's show-bizz.

My recommendation: Watch the movie first, get blown away, then read the book and get more in-depth with the story.

"Fight Club" is an inspiring and completely awesome story. Watch the movie. Read the book. Both are great, and after you've been as enlightened as much as possible, start your own Fight Club. :)